Fontegaia, slowly winding up/down...

16 
                     i.m. Sister Dorothy Stang (1930-2005)

 
Old Noah let fly the dove   across the shimmering
expanse   & she did not return   & so he knew
she was nesting somewhere   as doves will do
perhaps in the shelter   of a tamarind tree   (sing

 
so I do   woo   who)   or   in the Wild West
forest   of the Amazon   where the violent
greedy & arrogant   lawless   with impunity
lord it over the poor   but it will not always

 
be so (no    no)   it will not be so
when General Dove come   brooding, blooming
out of the treasure chest   of a looming, booming
General Dave   the planetary voice come   drooping

 
slow   wheeling in the shadow   of a condor overhead
the hovering pivot of the J   in Jubilee   your
heart's breakline   an inward   Inca   Cuzco lore
the iron-spurred spring   out of the sepulchre indeed

 
It grips the earth   with a raptor's rapture
Justice   all clear   through & through   because
it is a fateful swell   (like water in sunlight's haze-
shine rainbow)   early consciousness   born of desire

 
& ratified   refined by fire   to pure conscience
grown   free & sure   transparent measure
of the ninefold Law   out of a threefold choir
(3 rising triplets, folded   in glancing descent   or

 
swerve of   seraph wing)   O   I hear the ancient
potter's wheel   in the creak of an oaken rudder
aimed upstream, &   violin mosquito-whine   (horsehair
held taut   to celebrate   love's Oriental   fundament)